Archive for January, 2012

Far and away the best film new to DVD this week is Drive. Two of the best young talents in movies join forces to thrilling effect here, with Denmark’s Nicolas Winding Refn directing and Canada’s Ryan Gosling starring. This was one of the best films of the year, according to Criticker users. The rest of the new films aren’t too inspiring — Justin Timberlake’s In Time could be worth a look, and young horror fans who weren’t alive in 1982 might want to check out the remake of John Carpenter’s classic The Thing.

In the future people stop aging at 25 and must work to buy themselves more time, but when a young man finds himself with more time than he can imagine he must run from the corrupt police force to save his life.In Time @ Amazon

Successful publisher Will Atenton (Craig) quit a job in New York City to relocate his wife, Libby (Weisz), and two girls to a quaint New England town. But as they settle into their new life, they discover their perfect home was the murder scene of a mother and her children.Dream House @ Amazon

The best new DVD of the week is the comic drama 50/50, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a young man diagnosed with cancer. Mixing humor with the specter of death is a tricky task, but 50/50 manages to stay respectful to the trials of a battle with cancer, and offer some real laughs. An emotional roller-coaster which Criticker users appreciated. Check it out.

Adam, a 27 year old man who is otherwise in excellent health, is suddenly diagnosed with cancer. He breaks the news to his girlfriend, his best friend and his mother, who is also dealing with her husband who has Alzheimer’s disease. In the middle of it all, Adam also seeks therapy from a young and inexperienced therapist,assigned to him by the hospital, and befriends several older, wisecracking chemotherapy patients.50/50 @ Amazon

Set in the near future, where robot boxing is a top sport, a struggling promoter feels he’s found a champion in a discarded robot. During his hopeful rise to the top, he discovers he has an 11-year-old son who wants to know his father.Real Steel @ Amazon

This week’s slate of new DVD releases is a case of extremes. On the one side, you have films like Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star, and 2011’s very worst film according to users of Criticker: Abduction. But the rest of the line-up is great. Ryan Gosling and George Clooney team up in the well-received The Ides of March, and the starkly Christian film Courageous actually manages not to stink. But the pick of the week comes out of Portugal. Mysteries of Lisbon had Criticker users united in praise.

When teenager Nathan comes across his own childhood picture while scrolling through a missing persons website, he begins to question everything he ever took for granted — including the people he always assumed were his parents.Abduction @ Amazon

Follows a jealous countess, a wealthy businessman, and a young orphaned boy across Portugal, France, Italy and Brazil where they connect with a variety of mysterious individuals. Mysteries of Lisbon @ Amazon

When a tragedy strikes close to home, four police officers struggle with their faith and their roles as husbands and fathers; together they make a decision that will change all of their lives.Courageous @ Amazon

Here’s an improvement that’s been a long time in coming. The Recommendations Page is the landing page for registered users, where Criticker suggests a bunch of films you might want to see. Now, you can rank films that you’ve already seen, directly from this page.

We’ve also incorporated poster-sized images into the top recommendation, and cleaned up the style of the PSIs for the recommended films.

There’s one clear gem among this week’s litter of new releases to DVD. Moneyball, starring Brad Pitt as the manager of the Oakland As, was a hit both with critics and at the box office. The rest of the field was much less successful with users of Criticker, though I’ll cop up a strange urge to watch Anna Faris and Chris Evans in the romantic comedy What’s Your Number?

An all-star cast brings to life the true story of Billy Beane, a former jock turned general manager who uses unconventional methods to bring the best players to the Oakland A’s, a major league baseball team struggling against financial hardship.Moneyball @ Amazon

When his mentor is taken captive, a retired member of Britain’s Elite Special Air Service is forced into action. His mission: kill three assassins dispatched by their cunning leader.Killer Elite @ Amazon

Anna Faris stars in this rollicking comedy as Ally Darling, a sexually adventurous twentysomething who begins to suspect that her one true soul mate may be among the many lovers she has left in the dust, including Colin (Chris Evans). Turning to her licentious neighbor for help, Ally begins a quest to locate her old boyfriends to see which one might be Mr. Right. Mark Mylod directs this rom-com based on Karyn Bosnak’s book, 20 Times a Lady.What’s Your Number? @ Amazon

Arising out of the horror of the Spanish Civil War, a candidate for canonization is investigated by a journalist who discovers his own estranged father had a deep, dark and devastating connection to the saint’s life.There Be Dragons @ Amazon

Here we are, the absolutely worst films of 2011, as rated by you. The Smurfs and Justin Bieber don’t make the list… but Gary Oldman and Nicolas Cage do. Our condolences go out to anyone who’s had the misfortune of seeing one of these 10 stinkers.

“Totally Boring. You’re just sittin’ there, waitin for some suspense or shocking moments, but nothing comes around. And then, behind all those boring scenes, they are full of fails. Can someone tell how did they get the footage to earth, when they never went back to the moon?” – Fincky

“An absolute atrocity of M. Night Shyamalan-esque plot devices and empty, meaningless narrative methods. The stacked cast of Daniel Craig, Naomi Watts, and Rachel Weisz are completely wasted and led to give one-sided, static emotional performances reminiscent of what you might see in a cheesy, soap-opera mystery. The movie twists and twists until all of its potential complexities and themes are unwoven into a showing of simple, antiquated, and predictable suspense-less fluff.” – HiResDes

“Holy shit, please kill me now. Not only are almost all the characters unlikable, but they are just terrible people. Even the one likable character who I will call Jim Halpert because that is the role he plays in everything (type cast much) was a terrible person. On second thought, don’t kill me, I’m already on it.” – CMonster

“Ugh, this movie is so painfully shitty that you’d have spent your time better if you scraped the muscles off your legs. And why is it that every time I see Alex Pettyfer in a movie my dislike for him grows just a little more?” – Baby Fish

“A Gothic fairytale created by a team of middle managers, this is nothing more that a checklist of features needed to sell tickets to the Twilight demographic. A nameless medieval European village full of beautiful all-American teens with flawless makeup (including the boys), the worst dance party since The Matrix Reloaded, buckets of teen angst, terrible acting, woeful CGI and an ending so bad it makes the previous 80 minutes of mediocrity seem like high art. Utterly soulless.” – misterlizard

“Another film for philistines, The Roommate is an asinine rendition of Single White Female-level cliches of psycho friend “horror” whose banality and dopiness constitutes an assault on film culture that’s formed out of filmmakers like Christian E. Christiansen pandering to the lowest common denominator. Cinematic portrayals of psychopathy have rarely been so inane but never has stupidity and superficiality been so broadly held up as virtuous — not even by Cameron Crowe!” – tomelce

“‘I walk around like everybody else but inside I just feel like I’m a stranger in my own life.’ Man, am I glad this dialog was improvised and no-one actually wrote this script. Am I right guys? … Guys?” – calharding

We’ve released new functionality that allows you to filter the list of filmmakers by their country.

Of course, this filtering is only as good as the data. We’ve filled out the data for thousands of actors, directors and screenwriters, but there are many more that need the information. To further that end, as part of this update, we’ve also loosened the restrictions for updating biography information.

Used to be, you had to fill out (a) Nationality, (b) Date of Birth, and (c) Biography, before Criticker would accept the change. Now, you can fill out one, two or all three of the values. So if you know where Lou Diamond Phillips is from, but not when he was born, you can still contribute.